Most Wanted Albums for 2025: Part 2

10 longshot wishlist items from less-active artists

Jan 14, 2025

And we’re back for Part 2 of my most-wanted albums for 2025!

This list is mostly stagnant — given the downsizing from last year’s iteration and Sara Bareilles joining it by default, that leaves just one remaining spot unless I want to give up on somebody. On the bright side, I considered a lot fewer artists for this one spot this year, as many of those who I considered, but didn’t list, for 2024’s list ended up releasing an album! There were still 15 contenders for the one spot, though.1

As with yesterday’s post, I’m not including any artists who have set release dates. But also, this list contains some serious long-shots. Some of these acts may be truly defunct — but that’s the problem with falling in love with smaller artists: if they break up, there won’t be any real news about it. They just stop producing and you’re left wondering.

On that note…

The List

Faunts

Last Album: Feel.Love.Thinking.Of. (2009)

The Faunts are one of those bands that may or may not exist anymore. Ostensibly, they do, and the band’s members are still active musicians, but the band hasn’t done a whole lot recently. They teased a five-part series of new music called Ostalgia back in 2016, then released the first EP from that project, and the next four never surfaced. Since then, there’s been a single single in 2019, and that’s it.

Keyboardist and mixer Rob Batke has split from the band to pursue a solo career as Artisan Loyalist. Meanwhile, Tim Batke, who is still an official member, started up a side project with fourteen other friends called Duplekita. That project dropped albums in 2014 and 2023 (which I should probably find time to check out).

As for why this band and its blend of Electronic/Space Rock is worthy of this list, allow me to just remind you, real quick, of this song, which featured in the end credits of the original Mass Effect title. I’m not changing this song. It is perfection.

ilyAIMY (and/or Heather Aubrey Lloyd)

Last Album: Cicada (2017) / A Message in the Mess (2017)

ilyAIMY2 is a band local to the Baltimore area who doesn’t have much reach. They’re not well-known at all. Their monthly listener count on Spotify is just 133. But they’re a great little indie rock band.

Heather Aubrey Lloyd is a member of the band who also produces some solo material. Her voice is gorgeous and was essential in getting me hooked on them, so I would be happy to get a new solo album from her, as well. So I’m including both under this item — a release from either would make me happy; and I’ll be linking a song from each below.

I’m not sure that the band has any interest in producing new albums at this point in their career, so I may have to content myself with their weekly livestreams.3 Lloyd, though, recently ran an IndieGoGo campaign to fund the production of her next album. I missed the campaign, unfortunately, but I’m stoked to hear the album!

Karnivool

Last Album: Asymmetry (2013)

If you’ve read through any commentary in any prog metal spaces in the last few years, you’ve likely come across some mention of Karnivool — and likely some measure of pining for a new album. This Australian band has only produced three albums — THREE! — to date, but those albums have wormed their way into the Prog zeitgeist in a way that is impossible to replicate. Especially 2009’s Sound Awake, which includes the phenomenal tracks “New Day” and “All I Know”.

The good news for metalheads is that the band has been slowly ramping their activity back up for a few years now. Granted, that May 2019 announcement that a fourth album was in the works is almost old enough to be forced onto this 5+ year list. In the time since, the band released a single in 2021, headlined a festival in 2022, and toured in 2024.

They’re teasing us all relentlessly at this point. In fact, their final Instagram post of 2024 states they’ll be “[c]losing out the year in the studio” and “see [us] next year.”

Maybe?!?!?!

Kyler England

Last Album: Electric Hum (2011)

This one is a little bit personal. See, the song I’m including below was the one that my wife and I danced to at our wedding. We deliberated on which song to use for quite a while, and it came down to “When the World Stops Spinning” (below) or Sara Bareilles’ “I Choose You”. I don’t regret choosing Kyler’s song.

Weirdly enough, Bareilles is also on this list this year.

England’s Indie Electropop is very light and vibey, placing a premium on the feel of the music, overall, rather than emphasizing any singular aspect which comprises it. It’s very easy listening, great to relax with.

England is still active, but most of her energy has been focused on her contributions to The Rescues, an LA-based Indie Pop Rock three-piece. The Rescues have released four albums, including two after England’s Electric Hum (2011) in 2013 & 2017. I haven’t delved much into their music yet (I think they’re on my list and I just haven’t gotten to them), but they would also be on this 5+ half of my wishlist if I were to include them.

Marcela Bovio/Stream of Passion

Last Album: Through Your Eyes (2018) / A War of Our Own (2014)

The first time I heard Marcela Bovio’s voice, I was immediately enraptured. She sang the role of the wife on Ayreon’s seminal The Human Equation (2004), which has been my absolute favorite album for nearly twenty years now. The best part is that, before that album, she was a virtual unknown,4 and her inclusion on that album was won through a lengthy, competitive audition process.

See, Ayreon, a metal opera project run by composer Arjen Anthony Lucassen, typically recruits a huge pool of talent from across the metal world; vocalists, guitarists, drummers, you name it. It’s a metal all-star project. Except, for The Human Equation, Lucassen decided to bring a fan in to perform a role. At the end of it, Mexican soprano Marcela Bovio was handed the role of the wife; and after that, Lucassen believed so strongly in her talents that he helped to create a new band, Stream of Passion, specifically to give her a platform.

Stream of Passion actually disbanded in 2016, but have recently reunited and produced a new EP in 2023. So a new album in 2025 isn’t a total pipe dream.

A new solo album from Bovio would also be welcome, though. She hasn’t produced one since 2018, but has dropped singles in ‘22, ‘23, and ‘24. According to an interview with Metal Talk in November 2023, this is the most likely tack; Bovio is now a cancer survivor, and she has things to say about it.

Sara Bareilles

Last Album: Amidst the Chaos (2019)

Sara Bareilles is an incredibly rare singer-songwriter talent. She is an S-Tier lyricist with a powerful, memorable voice. Any Swifties who do not also listen to Bareilles cannot be taken seriously.

And she hasn’t dropped an album since 2019. We’re officially tied for the longest hiatus of her career. Except, this time, she hasn’t (yet) written and starred in a musical during said hiatus.5 Instead, Bareilles seems to have had her hands in a number of things. Television appearances, commissioned compositions for Netflix and Disney, and even reprising her role in Waitress.

Oh, and as for that “(yet)” above? Bareilles is currently working on a new musical — an adaptation of The Interestings.

But there’s no news thus far on a new album, and it seems unlikely that we’ll get one anytime soon.

Symphony X

Last Album: Underworld (2015)

If you enjoy Power Metal, but are unfamiliar with Symphony X, then you really can’t claim to enjoy Power Metal. They’re one of THE bands within that genre, having solidified their importance to it by the early 00s, fueled by the madman that is guitarist Michael Romeo.

Why is he a madman? Well, Romeo has featured in more than one Ayreon album, and after production for one of them wrapped, Lucassen had this to say:

Romeo’s peerless talent is supported by the slick vocals of Russell Allen, one of the best male voices in metal. And the band’s subject matter focuses heavily on literature and mythology, with their last album, Underworld, being based on a blend of Dante’s Inferno and Orpheus in the Underworld. I admit, I’ve only given that one a few listens, but in college I was absolutely hooked on their Paradise Lost album, and I might literally explode if I go too long without listening to their epic 24-minute “The Odyssey” track.

2024 was the band’s 30th anniversary; 2025 will mark a full decade since Underworld. We’re way overdue. But all signs point to the drought ending soon. In an interview with Coffee with Ola last October, Romeo indicated that the band has over three hours of new music which needs to be polished and “actually making sense of it” — a process which has been interrupted, repeatedly, by the need to tour.

So new Symphony X in 2025 is very possible. But it might also take until 2026. Fingers crossed!

Tanuki

Last Album: The Fear. The Fire. The Fall. (2018)

Another long-shot. And this one I know because I reached out to the mastermind behind this project (before last year’s list), Aleksander Wong-Kmiec, who also happens to live in Massachusetts. Studio time is expensive. Especially when you have a family and grocery prices have exploded.

Still, I’m hopeful that, eventually, we’ll get more music from this project. Wong-Kmiec stated that he has one last EP in the works. You can bet that if he decides to crowdfund for it, I’ll be hitting people up to contribute.

Why?

Because every single time I return to this album, I get chills. The Fear. The Fire. The Fall. is an album that really just haunts me. If you like Metalcore, Post-Metal or -Hardcore, or deeply emotional music, you MUST check this album out.

It’s absolutely incredible. And this project speaks to something I would love to transform Versatone into, should this outlet ever truly get off of the ground — funding for small artists to help them produce music that we will never get from more established acts.

Here’s hoping things get better for Aleks, and other small artists, sooner rather than later.

Vienna Teng

Vienna Teng is an Indie-Folk-Pop singer-songwriter who has been on hiatus for years now as she took a break from touring to focus on life and starting a family. And we’re very happy for her.

Most of all, we’re happy that she has announced a return to music and started touring again. One of our highlights of 2024 was finally managing to catch one of her live shows, and it was wonderful.

Let me be clear: I didn’t rank this list. For several reasons. But if I were to rank this list, Vienna would have the top spot. She’s one of my all-time-favorite musicians. And most of her songs are just her and her keyboard. It’s all very light, simple music, but so very well-crafted at every level.

Teng released a Single in 2024 which is also sort of an EP. It’s three songs which form a triptych called “We’ve Got You”. I was fortunate enough to hear it live last summer when we caught her in person. It’s a stellar and moving effect. The explanation on the single’s Bandcamp page reads:

This is a mashup-by-design: two songs written so that they each stand alone, but also work played simultaneously. I wrote it in the midst of pandemic and protests to convey what it feels like to hold two truths in your head at the same time. We are both broken and brilliant - and either way, we need other people at our side.

For the song sample for this entry, I’m going to keep last year’s and go WAY back to the AMV which initially introduced me to Teng’s music: Koopiskeva’s “Waking Hour”, which combines Vienna Teng’s “Gravity” with visuals from the incredibly gorgeous animated film by Makoto Shinkai, The Place Promised In Our Early Days.

Vuur

Last Album: In This Moment We Are Free — Cities (2017)

Vuur is a Symphonic Metal project which was intended to let Anneke van Giersbergen (featured already as a solo artist on yesterday’s Part 1) more fully express her heavier side. Unfortunately, they’ve only released one album to date — though, it was an absolutely stellar album. You’ll notice the lengthy, and strange, title above. And I have to mention that that debut album had this awesome concept of focusing on the stories of individual cities — Paris, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin — and expressing them musically. San Francisco’s song is called “The Fire”, which is pretty clear in its subject matter. One of my favorites is “Freedom”, the song for Rio, which is also the title track, and likely about the moment that Brazil declared its independence, with Rio as its capital; the lyrics are vague, though.

I want more from this project. I love van Giersbergen’s solo material, but her voice really soars when there’s some weighty instrumentation beneath it.

And that’s the list! All of it.

There are still so many artists I didn’t have room to mention. Check out the Honorable Mentions below and in Part 1 of this list.

Is there an artist I should have included instead? Who have a I missed?